RA Movie Thread (Read 5780 times)

Guys, I saw The Punk Singer last night. It's a documentary about riot grrrl feminist punk goddess Kathleen Hanna, frontwoman of Bikini Kill, Le Tigre, and The Julie Ruin. It was SO GOOD. You can get it on iTunes if it's not in your city.

Just thought I'd throw a couple of "quirky" movies that DW and I have watched over the past few years that have stuck with us. Lars and the Real Girl, Eagle vs. Shark, and Pontypool. I'm sure none were big screen blockbusters, but all are worth a watch.

Man of Steel is a decent movie, but this new Superman does not mind collateral damage. There's a huge fight scene between Superman and General Zod where they are punching each other through buildings, into train cars, and through crowded streets.

After a while, I just started entertaining myself by thinking, "How many people just died right there?", about every other second of this movie.

To be fair, he was only trying to save the entire planet against a foe who was arguably his superior in combat. But yes, a scene at then end where Supe' reflects on the devastation would have been appropriate for a little character building. Then again, the Superman story is rarely been about character building.

I enjoyed the movie. Though I kept wondering why the Kryptonians were "terraforming" Earth if it would suck away their powers (as it did in the atmosphere of the ship).

3/5 in my book.

Your Sister's Sister - This indie romantic comedy creates an emotional timebomb through the film that you gleefully wait to go off. The love-polyhedron is so weirdly entangled that you'll find your heart probing outcomes and pondering decisions and futures for the characters the same way your mind chews on Inception. I'm not going to even layout the plot -- it just sounds trite. It isn't a masterpiece, but it achieves something on an emotional level few films do. (5/5)

Man of Steel is a decent movie, but this new Superman does not mind collateral damage. There's a huge fight scene between Superman and General Zod where they are punching each other through buildings, into train cars, and through crowded streets.

After a while, I just started entertaining myself by thinking, "How many people just died right there?", about every other second of this movie.

It's like this...Superman kicks General Zod = 493 people dying 10 miles away in some random building when Zod lands on it. General Zod punches Superman = 1,360 people dying when 4.5 skyscrapers fall over from Superman going through them. Superman just looks at General Zod with a raised eyebrow = 25 houses destroyed and 90 people dead.General Zod glares back at Superman = 30 old ladies and their cats killed in a nursing home 42 miles away.

Man of Steel... It's more like Bull-in-a-china-shop of Steel.

It's really more like one of the old Looney Tunes cartoons, with Superman and General Zod punching each other all over the place while everything gets destroyed all around.

I think this describes just about every super-hero movie made the past 30 years.

I actually kind of liked Man of Steel, not for the aforementioned "Looney Tunes" moments, but the backstory to the character. 6.5/10 Socks.

jez: I've got some issues

mab411

Proboscis Colossus

posted: 12/12/2013 at 7:30 PM

Tonight is "Pizza and Movie Rehearsal" night, where I bribe my beginning band into an extra rehearsal by feeding them pizza and watching a movie on the big-screen afterwards.

I always Redbox a handful of whatever family-friendly movies are out currently and let them vote on which one to watch.

To my horror, they've chosen Smurfs 2.

Why, Neil Patrick Harris, why?!??

And...and is that Hank Azaria?!??

"God guides us on our journey, but careful with those feet." - David Lee Roth, of all people

This 1954 Akira Kurosawa film is always one of my favorites, and I like to shake the dust off my copy every six months or so. It's just insane what the filmmakers and actors did here with action scenes in the days way before computer effects and such. The movie is almost three and half hours, but there's not a single wasted second. This movie has been remade a couple of times in the form of The Magnificent Seven (1960) and A Bug's Life (1998), but it has inspired a great many other films for good reason.

Fun fact: Toshiro Mifune was the first actor under consideration to play Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid (1984), but the studio ultimately decided on Pat Morita when they realized that Mifune would have played the role in a more severe and serious manner characteristic of his cinematic past.

There's no point in writing a long-winded review of this one, except to say that it's a noticeable improvement over the first movie. My favorite part of the Tolkien book, the barrel escape sequence, is just amazing here. The dragon is pretty awesome, although my preferences are still for Vermithrax in the 1981 movie, Dragonslayer.

This was my first time seeing a movie with the 48fps high frame rate, and I've got some mixed feelings. I did not like the "soap opera look" of the film in this format at all, and it eroded the sheer joy of cinema in my eyes by letting a realistic look subvert the beautiful attributes of seeing a movie at the theater. On the other hand, though, the computer-generated effects looked downright authentic in the format.

Duplass Bros. movies this morning. Enjoyed them: The Puffy Chair and The Do-Deca Pentathlon. Comedies with interesting undercurrents. The opening of the DDP is a 5k race. Good stuff. Low-budget, but well-acted. Check them out.

There's no point in writing a long-winded review of this one, except to say that it's a noticeable improvement over the first movie. My favorite part of the Tolkien book, the barrel escape sequence, is just amazing here. The dragon is pretty awesome, although my preferences are still for Vermithrax in the 1981 movie, Dragonslayer.

This was my first time seeing a movie with the 48fps high frame rate, and I've got some mixed feelings. I did not like the "soap opera look" of the film in this format at all, and it eroded the sheer joy of cinema in my eyes by letting a realistic look subvert the beautiful attributes of seeing a movie at the theater. On the other hand, though, the computer-generated effects looked downright authentic in the format.

And, in celebration of The Desolation, Slate put together this recap of the running clips from The Lord of the Rings...

We went and saw The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug over the weekend. Much improved over the first Hobbit movie. I liked how PJ included Beorn, his character was very well done in the movie. I liked the interaction between the elves and the dwarves. Smaug was very well done too. I was kind of afraid how a talking dragon would appear in the movie (Pete's Dragon, NOOOOOOO!) but, PJ has restored my faith in him. My only nit to pick is the CGI with both Legolas and the "barrel scene" got out of hand. Tone that CG down, PJ, lest we lose the illusion of reality.